Subject: What are the ingredients of "Hasty Pudding?"

From: [email-masked] (Jack Decker)
Date: 11 Nov 1993 02:37:44 GMT

I need a fast answer on this... if you are reading this after about 7:30 A.M.
Thursday morning (November 11) U.S. Eastern Standard Time then please don't
bother to reply since it will be two late to do me any good.

The simple question is:  What are the ingredients of Hasty Pudding (as
mentioned in the Christmas carol, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas")?  We
are told there are only two main ingredients, but can't find out what they
are.  Any quick answers via e-mail would be most appreciated!

Thanks,
Jack

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From: [email-masked] (Dorothy J Heydt)
Date: 11 Nov 1993 04:39:46 GMT

>bother to reply since it will be two late to do me any good.

Well, it's 8:30 PST here, a little past midnight your time.
>mentioned in the Christmas carol, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas")?  We

The way _I_ heard the song, it was "Figgy Pudding."

>are.  

Cornmeal and water.  And a little salt.  It's English for polenta.  Boil
two parts water, when it comes to a boil add (semi-gradually) one part
cornmeal and salt to taste.  Keep stirring as you add the cornmeal, so
it doesn't stick, till the whole potful is thick and porridgy.  Serve
hot with whatever else you've got to eat, fried salt pork for example.
That's the way Mrs. Ingalls made it in I forget which Laura Wilder
book.

If what you want is Figgy Pudding, on the other hand, look up any 
old or traditional English cookbook and make a steamed Christmas
pudding, make sure it's got figs in it.

Any quick answers via e-mail would be most appreciated!

OK, I've already set this up to post but I'll mail it too.

Dorothy J. Heydt
[email-masked]	
University of California
Berkeley

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From: [email-masked] (Ben A. Fairbank)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 05:28:02 GMT

Well, as I recall, first      , the words to the carol are "We want
some FIGGY pudding," not hasty pudding.  But of course there may be
different versions to the carol.  Then, as to hasty pudding, I think
that hasty pudding is another name for Indian pudding.  The main
ingredients of that are milk, cornmeal, and molasses.  Also part of
it are salt, buttter, and some flavorings.  You have to bake it for
ages, so why it is called hasty is a mystery.
   Since writing the above I have looked in a variety of books and
found one with recipes for both hasty and Indian puddings.  The
differences are trivial (NYT cookbook 1961).

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From: [email-masked] (thomas wrentmore barnes)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 18:27:55 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Susan F Bradley) writes:
>
>
>Wasn't hasty pudding what Yankee Doodle called sticking a feather in his cap?
>
>

	The first verse of Yankee Doodle is like this:

	Yankee Doodle went to town, 
	a riding on a pony,
	stuck a feather in his cap 
	and called it macaroni!

	a later verse of the song has goes like this:

	Father 'n' I went down to camp,
	along with Capt'n Goodin,
	there we saw the men and boys
	as thick as hasty pudding.

	The term macaroni doesn't refer to the noodles, but to a group
of English dandys who wore outrageous fashions, and affected many other
strange habits - like eating funny Italian pasta. So the reference to
macaroni is a snide comment about a country bumpkin trying to make
himself look like a gentleman.

	You may make whatever inferences you wish about what it means
for men and boys to be "thick as hasty pudding". I don't understand 18th
c. slang to catch any innuendos there. Since Yankee Doodle was
originally a parody of the colonial Americans by the British, the
reference to hasty pudding is a slur on the Americans. Appearantly the
colonials ate a lot more cornmeal mush than the Brits, so a clodhopper
like Yankee Doodle would describe an army as being "thick as hasty
pudding". 

	My references are based on an annotated version of Yankee Doodle
in a children's book I own. Not scholarly, but it seems well
researched. 

	tom.

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From: [email-masked] (Dawn Burgess)
Date: 11 Nov 1993 18:37:39 GMT

>Wasn't hasty pudding what Yankee Doodle called sticking a feather in his cap?

No, that was macaroni.  But in the other verse, when "Father and I went down
to camp," the men were "thick as hasty pudding."

Dawn

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From: [email-masked] (Susan F Bradley)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 17:14:27 GMT

-- 
Sooz Bradley              So remember me my darling when spring is in the air
W.E.N.C.H.                And you see bald birds walking southward in dirty
ISU chapter president     underwear.    -Jack Blanchard

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From: [email-masked] (Ben A. Fairbank)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 18:49:10 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Susan F Bradley) writes:
>                  (what's W.E.N.C.H?  Western Ecumenical Neocritical
Culinary Hierophants?)
Yes, I think so>

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From: [email-masked] (Dave Jones)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 22:47:18 GMT

> Wasn't hasty pudding what Yankee Doodle called sticking a feather in his cap?

No, that was canneloni. Or was it rigatoni?  Whatever kids like with cheese 
sauce on it, anyway.

Somewhat later in the song a horde of fighting men is described as "as thick 
as hasty pudding".  I don't know what that tastes like with cheese sauce.

--
| [email-masked] -----Dave Jones Northern Telecom Rochester NY|
|-Comic Genius ? ---------------------------------------------------|
| An intimate complicity for talking puns - Frank Muir, "My Word" --|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

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From: [email-masked] (Susan F Bradley)
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 21:32:20 GMT

>Dawn

Okay, well, I knew hasty pudding was in there somewhere.

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From: [email-masked] (Pat Churchill)
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 04:13:35 GMT

If it's the figgy pudding (as in We wish you a merry Christmas) that
the original poster wanted, here's a recipe from my very old Mrs
Beeton's Book of Household Management:

2lb figs
1lb suet
1/2lb flour
1/2lb breadcrumbs
2 eggs
milk

Cut the figs in smal pieces. Grate the bread finely and chop the suet
very small. Mix these well tgether. Add the flour, the well beaten
eggs and sufficient milk to for the whole into a stiff paste. Butter a
mould or basin. Press the pudding in very closely. Tie it down with a
cloth and boil three hours or rather longer, Turn out of mould and
serve with melted butter, wine sauce or cream, Sufficient for 7-8 persons.

-- 
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            The floggings will continue until morale improves              
    [email-masked]  Pat Churchill, Wellington New Zealand     
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